Thomism and Modern Science: Relationships Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

THOMISM AND MODERN SCIENCE: RELATIONSHIPS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE T HE IMPORTANCE of science and technology in the modern world is generally recognized by the Christian community. The Second Vatican Council, in fact, singled them out as dominant factors in our civilization, factors that are most responsible for the changing thought patterns of the twentieth century. The Council Fathers pointed to " the mathematical and natural sciences " as having a profound impact " in the cultural sphere and on modes of thought." 1 The life sciences and the social sciences, they acknowledged, are contributing also to the intellectual revolution that characterizes our age. Just as the Council of Trent over four centuries ago warned Catholics of theological innovations that could undermine their faith, so, in a more positive spirit, the Second Vatican Council directs attention to secular transformations to which the Church must adjust if she is to carry out her mission in the modern world. As a consequence of the Council's teaching, those charged with fostering the intellectual life within the Church are encouraged to take a positive attitude toward scientific disciplines . And, since so much of the Church's intellectual life is associated with scholasticism, and with Thomism in particular, the opportunity is thereby provided to examine anew the relationships between Thomism and modern science. The aim of such an examination, of course, is to chart a program for the future. Such a charting presupposes a knowledge of the present situation, but even more it presupposes a correct understanding of what has happened in the past. Thomism has existed for close to seven hundred years, and modern science has a history of about half that span. If it is difficult to back 1 The Pastoral Constitution, Gaudium et Spes, on the Church in the Modern World, Preface, No. 5. 67 68 WILLIAM A. WALLACE off and study the present situation, it is relatively simple to view the past, to see there what has been good and what bad in the relationships between Thomism and science, and from this to make plans for the future. THE MEDIEVAL PAST The early history of this relationship, that before the rise of modern science in the early seventeenth century, does not require lengthy exposition. Because of the Aristotelian thought context in which medieval science was located, both St. Thomas and his teacher, St. Albert the Great, took an active interest in, and wrote competently on, topics that were to interest the precursors of modern science. For example, they discussed motion and the conceptual foundations of what was later to become the science of mechanics; 2 they evaluated the astronomical theories of their time; 3 they had distinctive views on the structure of matter that went far beyond those of their contemporaries .4 Thomistic science, as practiced by St. Thomas and 2 St. Albert, for example, is usually cited for his use of th~ terms f!uxus formae and forma f!uens to characterize the diverse ways of viewing the entitative status of motion in general, and of local motion in particular. This distinction, taken up in the fourteenth century by nominalists and realists, became a fruitful source of discussion from which the new science of mechanics, in both its kinematical and dynamical aspects, was to emerge. See Anneliese Maier, Die Vorliiufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert (Roma: 1949), pp. 11-16. Similarly, St. Thomas is singled out for attention, because of his teaching, contrary to Aristotle and Averroes, that motion through a void would not be instantaneous, thus indirectly influencing the development of a concept of inertial resistance to motion among later thinkers such as Nicole Oresme. See A. Maier, Zwischen Philosophie und Mechanik (Roma: 1958)' pp. 226, 246, 257, 266-279. 3 For St. Thomas's critical evaluation of medieval astronomical theories, see Thomas Litt, O.C.S.O., Les Corps Celestes dans l'univers de saint Thomas d'Aquin. Philosophes Medievaux, Tome VII (Louvain/Paris: 1963); also W. A. Wallace, 0. P., Cosmogony. Vol. X of St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (New York/ London: 1967), English translation, with notes and appendices on Thomas's science. • St. Albert, with unusual foresight, endorsed the atoms of Democritus as providing an insight into the structure...